


It's you, I, us now

by celestialism



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Tower, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, But also a wonderful bromance with Bruce, Clint is mysteriously absent, F/M, Gen, How do I tag my immense feelings of Bucky having a three-way relationship with Steve and Natasha?, M/M, Multi, Nastucky, OT3, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, SteveBuckyNat - Freeform, The Avengers all live in Stark Tower, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialism/pseuds/celestialism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He still gets nightmares. He still wakes up in that too-cold, too-dark place somewhere in the recesses of his mind and he chokes as he feels ice seize his throat.</p><p>James knows that the pain will always be there, like the criss-crossing scars along his body. But he also knows that this pain can be ignored, and if he ignores it long enough he can pretend to forget it’s there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's you, I, us now

She is heat; cascading fire like the halo of red around her regal features.  
He is a golden glow that borders on blinding.

She gazes softly through kohl-rimmed oceans.

The corners of his cerulean eyes crinkle when he smiles, and he does that often.

They are warmth and light; they are good and they drag James out of his head, out of the dark and they melt the ice inside him and they _stay_.

 

Natasha teaches him how to dance again. She is patient and kind and kisses his cheek when the song is over and tells him that he is a good man. She isn’t afraid of him, even when he wakes up screaming with the grit of sand and the sting of winter wind in his mouth, the coppery smell of blood filling his nostrils. She sings to him - Russian lullabies - when all he can do is gasp breaths of air that doesn’t seem to reach his lungs. She runs gentle hands through his matted, sweaty hair when not even tears can help with the phantom pain of where his arm used to be.

 

Where she helps with enigmatic smiles and soft words, Steve laughs loudly and encourages James to do the same.

He teaches James to hold a brush again, and it takes him a long time to get out of the habit of holding it aloft like a knife. Steve wraps one arm around his shoulders from behind and closes his fingers around James’ and directs his hand around the canvas, the image that is formed by the paint isn’t important. The important thing is that James melts into Steve’s side and lets himself be vulnerable because he isn’t being forced to do this. He has choice, he is able to push himself away from the table and walk away but he doesn’t. He feels - for the first time in a long time - safe.

 

James is still unused to being asked, not told; to having his opinion taken into consideration, being appreciated when otherwise would have been admonished.

 

The two of them help James get back into the habit of being a person, not a weapon.

 

James’ mind sends him back to those moments when he spent too much time alone, in snow, in desert, drenched in someone else’s blood. He remembers the time he spent waiting for ‘the enemy’ to walk into his sights, although he can’t remember what he was fighting for anymore. He remembers only words like ‘greater good’ being tossed around as reasons, but he can’t pinpoint who spoke them, when they were drilled into his brain: clearly HYDRA and the American military have much in common in that sense.

James knows he is a broken man, in more ways than one, and he isn’t a religious man and he doesn’t pray. However, in those moments when the streetlights filter through the shutters and move on the gentle breaths of sleep he thanks anyone or anything out there that he has these two by his side.

 

They support him in more ways than James can be grateful for. They help him find his footing and they listen when he rambles on about things he isn’t even sure happened.

They pull him up to their level. They are compassionate, not pitying, and James appreciates that the most.

Together, they drag him out his shell and into the world. Natasha cuts his hair when he asks her to. Steve takes him to buy the clothes that he wants to wear. They introduce him to their friends who push and shove each other so as to make room for him in their midst. 

The glint in Tony’s eye when he sees his arm reminds James of Howard, a pain that churns his stomach and threatens to rip from his throat in a litany of appeals for forgiveness. Tony seems to notice the torment that bubbles under his skin because he looks up when he’s tinkering with some of the joints in his elbow, looks him directly in the eye and simply nods. It would be imperceptible to anyone else, especially since Tony just continues chattering on about potential modifications to the interior wiring, but James exhales a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding and indulges Tony in his puzzling over which alloy overlay would provide the best increase to the strength of the limb.

 

Bruce looks at James with an understanding that cannot be translated into words. He sits with him in the main living room at ungodly hours and just brews flavours of tea that James previously would have formally denied the existence of.

He recommends movies and books, and they actually say very little to one another, but its appears mutually beneficial. There are mornings that Pepper, or Natasha, or even Tony, has found the two of them, leaning on each other on the couch, the movie playing on the gigantic screen long since forgotten as both finally succumb to dreamless sleep.

No one disturbs them, they simply smile, maybe snap a picture, and move along.

 

Even though he’s a shadow of his former self, and he’s not the Bucky that Steve once knew, he’s definitely not the same Winter Soldier that destroyed DC. He feels less like he’s trying to fit into a persona that has been prepared for him, and more like he’s developing himself as his own individual. Sometimes, he feels human again.

 

He still gets nightmares. He still wakes up in that too-cold, too-dark place somewhere in the recesses of his mind and he chokes as he feels ice seize his throat.

James knows that the pain will always be there, like the criss-crossing scars along his body. But he also knows that this pain can be ignored, and if he ignores it long enough he can pretend to forget it’s there.

Some night are perfect, though, even if he is anything but.

Some nights - more than he is able to appreciate - he sleeps soundly, sometimes he even dreams. Although, the best nights aren’t the ones he directs his thanks at some unknown deity; the best nights are the ones he murmurs his gratitude against the skin of his keepers in all the languages he knows. The juxtaposed lovers in his bed.

The nights he has heat and gold and he is truly happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd, so any mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title from Red by Phoria.
> 
> Reviews are welcome.


End file.
